I admit up front that this article is an example, in one respect, of the problems this article is about. That is that, though out of power, in the minority, and shown by the objective evidence of George Bush's perfectly Republican eight years of disastrous rule, everybody is, still, inexplicably, talking about the Republicans.

Millions of people listen every day to Republicans spouting the comforting simplicity of their lies, distortions, spin and fantastic delusions. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and other Republicans have an audience unequaled in the history of communication, both in quantity and lack of quality. Everyone's listening to the Republicans. They're the hot topic.

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Keith Olberman, Media Matters and others do a good job of pointing out the fallacies, hypocrisies and outright lies of those Republicans. But, look at who they're exclusively talking about. Republicans. Again, they're the hot topic. Go to any of the websites for these people, and it'll all be about Republicans.

We, on the progressive, liberal side have inhibitions about telling lies about the Republicans, so we don't get even close to the amount of publicity the Republicans get by doing so. But, we can ask questions about Republicans, based on reasonable evidence about their lifestyle and questionable proclivities.

When Rush Limbaugh was taken to the hospital in Hawaii, was it in a straight jacket? Does Glenn Beck have to go see a psychiatrist every day on his way to work to get a dose of anti-psychotic medication to keep him minimally functional? If he does, it's not working. When Bill O'Reilly is on air behind his desk, is he naked from the waist down?

Not telling, just asking.

The only way to combat the Republican lies is for every Democrat, liberal, progressive, whenever they speak in public, to talk only and always about Republican lies and ask reasonable questions, as above, about them. Take the initiative. Take it away from the Republicans.

- Advertisement -

These reports of Republican lies are not baseless, here's corroborating evidence.

The Republican congressman who goes to his home district and brags about the money he has brought there from a stimulus plan that he voted against is a hypocrite, and he's an outrageous liar. But, it gets him on TV. The real story that they miss or ignore is that he's lying. The lie gets reported, but the fact that it's a lie doesn't.

The re-writing of history is a common Republican theme. Dana Perino said on national TV that there wasn't a terrorist attack on the US during the Bush administration. It's impossible for that to happen during a Republican administration. Doesn't fit with their ideology. And nobody present bothered to mention 9/11.

I saw somewhere that the opposite of a conservative is not a liberal, it's a progressive. Makes sense. Let's take Glenn Beck as representative of the Republican, conservative, anti-progressive ideology. Let's also take Beck's anti-progressive theme to it's logical conclusion, just to show where we would be if Republican conservatives got what they wish for.

Beck is vehemently against progressives and therefore progress. People have lived on earth for more than a million years as hunter-gatherers, traveling around the wilderness picking what they could eat and catching what small game they could with their bare hands. Somewhere around 50,000 to 100,000 years ago some progressive in the small tribe of 25 to 100 people had the idea that using a sharp stick would help in catching game and reaching more edible vegetation, by increasing their reach and lethality.

- Advertisement -

Of course, there was a proto-conservative, Republican like Beck there to raise all kinds of hell about this progressive idea. It would doom the tribe to extinction. It was against the will of the gods. It was against the will of the people. And on and on. All of it then, as it is now, demonstrably false.

The irony is the fact that everything Glenn Beck comes in contact with, touches or interacts with every day of his miserable life is the result of progress. He hasn't the intellectual capacity to know that it's the results of progress that he has used to make himself a multi-millionaire, the darling of the conservatives and a figure of ridicule to rational people who so easily see the contradiction in what he claims he wants and what the infallible judgment of reality would present him.

That infallible judgment of reality without progress would leave hypocrite Glenn Beck running around in the wilderness, bare-assed naked, trying to gather food, catch game and tear it apart with his bare hands and teeth.

Ed Martin is an ordinary person who is recovering from being badly over-educated. Born in the middle of the Great Depression, he is not affiliated with nor a member of any political, social or religious organization. He is especially interested in (more...)